Okay, haven’t we all heard enough already on steroids in baseball? I know I am sick and tired of hearing it and it makes me even more disturbed that our politicians wasted time dealing with the issue and were seen grandstanding on television rolling out player after player in hearings in 2007 and 2008. Meanwhile little did we know the whole economy was going down the tubes as a result of corruption that likely involved many of the 535 members of Congress plus some in the Executive Branch!! And if you think that only one political party was involved in this corruption then you are very naive and I’ve got some swamp land in Florida that I’ll be happy to sell you. Make no mistake about it, Congress should NOT have been involved in MLB affairs, although I can’t blame them for wanting to intervene because the Commissioner has helped to ruin this once great game ever since he took over.

But I digress..

I mean is there anybody out there who doesn’t think that the players were doing steroids for years while the people who run and work in baseball looked the other way? Any real sports or baseball fan knew steroid use was prevalent for years in MLB so why all of the fuss? It wasn’t against MLB policy until 2002. In fact here is the evolution of the MLB steroid policy:

Evolution of the steroid policy

2002

• Before 2002, Major League Baseball had no official policy on steroid use among players. As part of a collective bargaining agreement, players and owners agree to hold survey testing in 2003. If more than 5% of results from the anonymous tests are positive, formal testing and penalties will be put into place the next year.

2003

• Baseball announces after the season that 5% to 7% of test results were positive, triggering the new policy in 2004.

2004

• Each player is tested once a year in season. A first positive test results in treatment, followed by a 15-day suspension for a second positive and up to a year suspension for a fifth positive. The result is no player is suspended for steroid use.

2005

• Baseball agrees to a new policy. Banned substances include steroids, steroid precursors, designer steroids, masking agents and diuretics. There will be one unannounced mandatory test of each player during the season. In addition, there will be testing of randomly selected players, with no maximum number. And there will be random testing during the offseason. The penalties for a positive result are, first positive, 10 days; second, 30 days; third, 60 days; fourth, one year, and all without pay.

I am glad there is a policy now because steroids are harmful (as the NFL well knows) and the game needs to be cleaned up. But why do we have to keep going on these witch hunts about who lied or who did them? Who cares? There was no policy before 2002 and the guys who shoved needles in their rears for money will likely one day pay the price physically for doing it. If I was a baseball player who did steroids before 2002 and was asked about it, I’d say, “Yes, I did them, it was not against the rules and MLB didn’t seem to care too much about it as they were too busy making money.” End of story. But a bunch of these guys have egos the size of Alaska (see Roger Clemens) and thus were not smart enough to just come out and admit it so now the media is intent on making them pay.

If you ask me this whole steroids witch hunt is a prime example of how this country focuses too much on playing the blame game and not dealing with the real issues. The media and the politicians don’t want to address the hard problems, they just want to say “it wasn’t my fault, this is what I am left with from the previous person/regime..blah, blah, blah.” If we keep focusing on who to blame then we never solve the real problems and just waste energy. I for one have had enough of it. Somebody please stand up and lead and quit playing the blame game! Clearly Major League Baseball could use some good leadership to get us focused back on this once great game again and make us forget the politicians, who all I see doing is continuing their day to day power struggle to stay in charge at the expense of the rest of us hard working people.